Muscle
]] Popeye being an action man and a strength-based character, his cartoons have oftentimes been observed to be "all about the muscles." Popeye's victories are frequently presaged by him doing a muscle pose, sometimes with a depiction of some element of great potency (a volcano, a stick of dynamite, a nuclear warhead) superimposed on his bicep. This powerful symbol of his strength mostly occurs as indicative of his ingestion of spinach which, at least in the animated adaptation, is the source of his ultimate dominion over his enemies. Popeye's muscles From the time of his creation by Elzie Segar in the late 1920s, Popeye has been characterized as a tough and wiry sailor who never backs down from a fight. He possesses enormous forearms like a stevedore's, made all the more prominent by his cartoonishly tiny upper arms, shoulders, and other body parts. This device serves to underline his deceptively strong nature as well as (most notably in the animated cartoons) to emphasize the transformation wrought by the spinach, in which his arms grow to superhuman girth, accompanied on occasion by an enlargement of his chest - which has been known to even grow chest hair. The muscle growth is a momentary phenomenon, however; the resultant power surge remains in force until his enemies have been thoroughly beaten. Bluto's muscles Although Bluto's portrayal varies, he is frequently made to be muscular to appropriately challenge the powerhouse protagonist. From his inception in the early 1930s Bluto has been drawn as a much larger individual than Popeye, with more conventionally scaled arms, legs, and chest. In his Segar and Fleischer incarnations, however, his brawn was offset by a paunchy girth, leading to the plausibility of the defeat of this lumbering, overweight ox by a more agile as well as strong, determined man. Beginning with the cartoon ''The Anvil Chorus Girl in 1944, however, Famous Studios brought Bluto's physique more into a bodybuilder mold, with a tight waist and powerful chest that was capable of hammering his opponent into the ground like a piledriver. He arguably became an even bigger threat to Popeye and a more enticing suitor to Olive Oyl. The KFS cartoons of the early 1960s brought Bluto back to his oafish stature - in the process changing him to "Brutus". Others' muscles Several less-animated characters from the comics (Toar, the Goons, Bolo, etc.) and brutes in general are depicted as large and conventionally muscled to appear threatening in contrast to Popeye's incongruously small frame. In a number of cartoons (e.g. Never Kick a Woman, Hill-billing and Cooing), Olive Oyl makes use of Popeye's spinach to acquire the same kind of might to beat other muscular female adversaries. Popeye's nephews have also been known to gain instantaneous muscles by eating spinach and to beat up Bluto and even Popeye himself. There are also instances where spinach has been fed to animals with similar results. Gallery Popeye real curly.png Popeye Pathetic Attempt to Look Like Bluto.gif Popeye_Muscles_Up.gif Bluto Bounces His Biceps.gif Bluto Muscleflex.gif Bluto Power Gunz.gif Popeye Chesk Hair.jpg Popeye Spaghettimuscles.gif Bluto-Popeye Muscle Comparison.gif Big Strong Bluto.gif Bluto Ironman.gif Lifeguard Muscles.gif Popeye Lucky 13.gif Popeye Out to Punch Pose.gif Popeyemuscs VII.gif Bluto He-Man Power.gif Popeye's Nephews.gif Muscular overload.jpg Brutus Muskels-Schmuskels Strongman.jpg Never+Kick+3.jpg Poopdeck Pappy.jpg